My First Nandi Ride!

I decided to join a bunch of bikers (Harikrisha, Ravindra, Sreesha, Krishna, Sunil and Ashok) to ride upto Nandi Hills. I had never done a ride on any hill on my bike and I was keen to test myself.

It was a nice day - the 15th of September, great weather for biking. Our starting point was IISc and I decided to take my car till there as I felt it was difficult to ride the last 16 km from IISc to my house - well thats Bangalore traffic for you :-)

It was the first time I was actually dismantling the wheel and putting it into my car. Somehow managed to do it after seeing some videos on youtube. I reached IISc at around 6AM and we left around 6.30 AM.

It was a great ride in the morning. We were going through village roads with very little traffic and lot of greenery around. It was absolute pleasure. On normal days, we would never get to see such places and even if go through them, we are in our cars and in a hurry to get to somewhere - well, there was no such hurry ... we knew the Nandi Hills is not going anywhere .....

We reached nandi around 10 AM. Stopped for some breakfast at Nandi Base and left around 11AM. I was told that it is an 8 km ride with 40 curves. The first 5 km are easy and the last 3 km are killing. It was the first time I was riding up a hill and I made the mistake of starting with 2nd gear in the front derailleur. I was quickly tired before covering even 1 km. I let the 14 year old Sreesha get ahead of me and I rested.

I could not believe that I was already tired. After resting for a few minutes, I started again - this time too, I did not change the gear. I got tired again and I had hardly covered 2.5 km. I decided I will give up. I thought I ll wait for Ravi (He is an expert long distance rider at a slow pace) and then tell him and leave. I must have waited for about 15 minutes. I recouped in that time. Ravi and Krishna rolled in and they also sat down.

My mind was telling me, it is better to give up now rather than go up a few more kilometres and then give up! I also reasoned that I tire myself too much, then I ll not be able to cycle back the 50 km to IISc. These were the tricks my mind was playing on me!!! Krishna and Ravi and encouraged me to go ahead and I also noticed that they were in a lower gear.


So, now I thought I ll lower the gear and go at my own pace without ever speeding. I started again and the higher cadence worked magic. I was able to go up and up. After that I rested a few times, but never wanted to give up. The last 3 km was indeed the toughest, but I had the lowest gear combo (1x1) and somehow managed to do it. I took about an hour and 15 minutes with 5 breaks. It was indeed a pleasure reaching the peak. More than reaching the peak, I was happy that I had not given up. This is me and my bike on top of the Nandi.

All of us made it to the top and then we had a whirlwind down ride. It was a pleasure! We were zooming .... and using our brakes a lot .... it is indeed quite a task to navigate ur bike in hairpin bends while going downhill. We made the downhill journey in flat 15 minutes!! This is all of us after the nandi ride.

The route we took is here.

The ride upto Doddaballapur road was very scenic with no traffic. But we rode for nearly 30 km on Doddaballapur Road and that road had quite some traffic. But once we were off Doddaballapur Road, it was great again! Very scenic with no traffic and paved roads. Check a couple of pics below in this stretch.

I would strongly recommend this route. It has very little traffic (if u exclude the Doddaballapur Road) and it is very scenic! It was also fun to be accosted by kids at every village asking money for Ganesha!!! Reminded me of my childhood!

Overall, it was a great trip with some great ride partners. More than reaching the top, I am glad I did not give up! This is like a Rite of Passage - If you are a biker in Bangalore, then you gotta do Nandi :-).

Now, the 200 km brevet seems within grasp .... That comes up in November!!!

EDIT (19/9/12): Added the names of all guys who biked that day to Nandi